In a wide variety of environments, ingredients from the same group of containers are repetitively used together in certain procedures. For this reason, conveniency and efficiency in accessing these ingredients can be improved by connecting together the containers in the group such that the containers can be easily retrieved and transported together as a single unit. For example, in a pharmaceutical environment, pills or fluids, each stored in a separate container, are frequently combined with pills or fluids from other containers. If containers in the group can be connected together such that they can be readily accessed as a single unit, the user can avoid the time consuming task of gathering together the individual containers.
Containers which store various cleaning solutions for contact lenses as well as the container for storing the lenses are particularly well suited for grouping together. A soft contact lenses user typically follows a cleaning procedure of cleaning the lenses with a daily lens cleaning solution from one bottle, pouring a saline solution from another bottle into a specially designed contact lens case which stores each lens separately in a saline bath compartment, and then placing the lenses in the case. Accordingly, such users must repetitively gather together the daily cleaner bottle, the saline solution bottle and contact lens case to perform the cleaning procedure. An apparatus which connects together these containers would improve the convenience and efficiency of the cleaning operation by allowing the user to grasp and move the containers as a single unit and to keep the containers together as a single unit.
Several packages or similar devices have been proposed for holding containers or other elements together as a group. For example, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,785,484 to Cuniingham; 3,823,814 to Lum; 3,891,174 to Harvey; 3,930,578 to Stein; 4,062,510 to Brochu; 4,089,412 to Baugh; 4,390,095 to Cunningham; 4,537,341 to Kelly; and 4,686,745 to Butler. However, the need still exists for an apparatus which connects together containers in such a way that the containers are properly and easily oriented with respect to one another and to the surface upon which they are placed and are easily transported as a group.